ONS: 18 December 2015

AFRICA: The African Union’s Peace and Security Council has proposed sending 5,000 peacekeepers to Burundi, invoking a rule allowing it to deploy a force without a country’s consent.

AMERICAS: Brazil’s Supreme Court has scrapped a commission set up to deal with impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.

ASIA: US Defense Secretary Ash Carter arrived in Afghanistan to assess the security situation, amid reports of increased violence and Islamic State presence.

EUROPE: Russian officials invited British, Chinese, and Indian diplomats to witness the opening of the black box of a Russian warplane downed in Turkey last month.

MIDDLE EAST: Israel and Turkey have reached a preliminary agreement on normalising relations, an Israeli official said.

TECHNOLOGY: The Second World Internet Conference (WIC) closed after about 2,000 domestic and foreign attendees discussed Internet governance and cyberspace cooperation.

TOP STORY

Syria: The UN Security Council will discuss plans to end five-year civil war

Diplomats from more than a dozen countries were expected to meet in New York, with an eye to drawing the Syrian war to a close and to focusing the world’s attention on the threat of the Islamic State.

On the eve of the UN talks, Assad warned in an interview with Dutch television that misguided efforts to bring about regime change would make the conflict “drag on”.

Nations meeting at the UN will essentially be negotiating a Russian plan for a “political transition,” based on the Syrian government’s consent and with no clear reference to President Bashar Assad’s departure.

The US and Russia, which is the main ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, have disagreed on Assad’s fate.

Iranian FM Mohammad Javad Zarif said his country has seen “no lists we can agree upon” of Syrian opposition groups that should be included in peace negotiations set to begin by 01JAN.